Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture (American Literatures Initiative (Temple University Press)) - Softcover

Mannur, Anita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439900787 ISBN 13: 9781439900789

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Food, Anita Mannur writes, is a central part of the cultural imagination of diasporic populations. 'Culinary Fictions' maps how food figures in various expressive forms by examining cultural production from the Anglo-American reaches of the South Asia diaspora.

About this title

Book Description:

For South Asians, food regularly plays a role in how issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and national identity are imagined as well as how notions of belonging are affirmed or resisted. Culinary Fictions provides food for thought as it considers the metaphors literature, film, and TV shows use to describe Indians abroad. When an immigrant mother in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake combines Rice Krispies, Planters peanuts, onions, salt, lemon juice, and green chili peppers to create a dish similar to one found on Calcutta sidewalks, it evokes not only the character’s Americanization, but also her nostalgia for India.

Food, Anita Mannur writes, is a central part of the cultural imagination of diasporic populations, and Culinary Fictions maps how it figures in various expressive forms. Mannur examines the cultural production from the Anglo-American reaches of the South Asian diaspora. Using texts from novels—Chitra Divakaruni’s Mistress of Spices and Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night—and cookbooks such as Madhur Jaffrey’s Invitation to Indian Cooking and Padma Lakshmi’s Easy Exotic, she illustrates how national identities are consolidated in culinary terms.

About the Author:

Anita Mannur is Assistant Professor of English and Asian/Asian American Studies at Miami University of Ohio.

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1439900787
• ISBN 13: 9781439900789
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 255